Taomeow

Beancurdturtle, I promised myself so many times (mostly at other forums that, for me, went before this one) to never participate in any discussions of any General Theories of Anything anymore and to limit myself to non-general topics. What's the martial application for the Cloud Hands. How to get the elbow to stay parallel to the ceiling when doing calligraphy. Has anyone tried the Deer alchemy three hundred and twenty times instead of thirty-two. What professor Yan of Cornell U has to say about the I Ching's hexagram "Standstill" in the context of the genetic code. How exactly to place the Water Dragon in the Xuan Kong tradition. How to read the Hidden Branches in Four Pillars astrology. How to discern the Fibonacci sequence in TCM's measurements in cuns. What's the meaning of a birth mark on the right cheek at the level of the earlobe in taoist face reading. Why I am convinced that all Western civilization, which finds its genesis in what historians refer to as The Greek Miracle, is as much the outcome of what ancient Greeks learned from ancient Arabs who learned from ancient Chinese whose scientists were taoists, all of them -- as much the outcome of this fertilization as it would have been if the whole macarena was secretly transmitted by a higher out-of-space civilization -- so far ahead taoism the science was of anything we know even today via tackling the world by means of other cognitive methods, those that have come into existence after "tao has been destroyed" (I'm quoting Laozi, Zhuangzi, Wen-tzu and Yuandao on this one, all of them have this interesting bit of information smack in the middle of everything else they have to say -- have you noticed?..) -- but I digress. What I mean is, I should really limit my participation to discussions of specificities and leave generalities well alone. Tackle only things that fascinate me, the treausures of six thousand years of accumulation which Chinese civilization miraculously preserved to this day while all others comparatively ancient have lost long, long ago. So I always look for my chance to have one of THESE discussions. And... ...and somehow I still, from time to time, get myself into a conversation into nowhere. Well, I know how and why it happens. Chinese Astrology explained it to me. But even though it's energetically justified (my proprietary Phase of qi catches on Fire easily, and the internet is primarily a manifestation of the Fire phase), still it's time I learned. So... nevermind. Let's talk about something else. NB: I didn't and don't mean any disrespect to your path, and I mean it most sincerely. I simply am into something else, is all. I feel we might have a more fruitful exchange if our respective paths intersect in the vicinity of one of those something-else topics. Thanks for a stimulating exchange.

Birth memories revisited... A tunnel dream, a train dream, a highway dream, darkening, raining, being unable to see -- then light at the end of it -- these are all very typical memory dreams that tell you a lot about the way you were born. The plot is symbolic, and doesn't mean much, but the feeling is real, and means you've been there done that. Everything you are remembers -- except for the neocortex, whose job it is to forget the real and come up with a symbolic representation using the context of the present, the context of adulthood, to make sense of the feeling that is not current, is very early, and was experienced before you even had a neocortex. When you sleep, the neocortex, which normally, in your waking state, thoroughly silences the lower parts of your brain (the ones that remember), gets partially silenced in its own right, and as soon as it happens, the lower parts get activated -- and that's how you get to experience the feeling memories of things that went before the neocortex was there. If you were able to silence it completely rather than partially, you would get "what is, as is," in the context of real events you experienced instead of their re-interpreted symbolic shadows.

Beancurd, OK, I understand you better and better. Thanks. You understand me less and less. I'm not looking for a path to choose, I'm very satisfied with the path chosen. It is traditional and authentic, and I'm not looking for improvements, innovations or shortcuts. Jump-starting harmony is not my style, harmony comes to me when it comes, the way it comes, and if and when it doesn't, the last place I look to find instructions as to how to get there is on the internet. I am me; you are you. You came to your understanding through your experiences; I, through mine. You needed to relax; I needed to put in some effort. You had arthritis; I had the kind of flexibility that bordered on supernatural. You needed to resolve an inner conflict; I needed to resolve an outer one. You needed to forget the details and focus on the essential; I had to forget the essential and focus on the details. You believe your path is the "next step" or a "bigger better step" vis a vis mine. I believe mine is unfolding in a very timely fashion and my "next step" is mystery of mysteries. You want harmony in your life; I want harmony in as many lives as mine will be able to touch. "Real people come like the spring, benefitting all beings" -- that's where I want to go. Where do you want to go? 'cause if you call it a "path," doesn't it lead somewhere?.. I thought it was funny. But if you don't like it, I'll change it, out of respect for your sense of creepy.

When I do taijiquan, the detail is what makes the difference between embodying (ti) taiji and missing its point completely. When I mix an herbal formula, the detail is what makes the difference between healing and harming. When I write a word, the detail is what makes the difference between a cat and a bat, a rat, a mat, a hat. Tao is subtle. It is a lot more common to miss the trees for the forest these days -- it's called New Age, this reverence for the generalized, abstract, rooted in nothing in particular practically, and ultimately nonexistent forest, coupled with the disdain for the concrete, living and breathing, rooted in very specific soil (toxic or fertile? -- this little detail matters!), and ultimately real tree. Is it a birch or a strangler vine? Is it an apple tree or a Christmas tree? Is it philosophical taoism or alchemical, or magical, or mystical, or divinational, or devotional, or none of the above?.. There's nothing wrong with seeing the trees... seeing the trees doesn't automatically rob one's sight of its ability to see the forest... The opposite, strangely, is not true. One's ability to see the "general" forest doesn't automatically guarantee that one won't walk his chosen path into a pine forest in search of peaches... Nothing is wrong with pine cones, but I prefer to pay enough attention to the details to be able to bake an apple pie when I want to bake an apple pie, not a pine cone pie. Anyway... my main point is, there's no school, sect, shape and form of taoism that consists in reading philosophical books about tao and then applying what they say to life. It may be a very cool thing to do, of course, I'm not arguing with that... but it is something that has never been defined as "the taoist path." Reading those books and applying what they suggest to life is but one tree in the forest along the taoist path -- and not the biggest one!

Thanks for elaborating, Beancurdturtle. I see your point better now. One quick note -- "ancient" is not a precise term of course, but I understand "ancient taoism" as taoism that predates Laozi --to wit, this neat work of sublime genius requiring no words, really, that is attributed to Fu Xi, King Wen, and the Duke of Zhou -- that was Laozi's platform too as he climbed to prominence on the shoulders of these giants. As Tao Te Ching is your guiding light, so Zhouyi, also known as the I Ching, together with its sources, the Hetu and Luoshu, is mine. And these are most definitely not works of philosophy. So, for starters, I can't really equate "ancient taoism" with "philosophical taoism" -- "philosophical" is a modern (relatively) way to tackle this body of knowledge, initiated by researchers (not practitioners) circa the 17th century if memory serves. I'll save the discussion of taoist practices, including ritual practices, for another thread -- but for someone who is on speaking terms with ancient taoism's energetic basics, donning a blue robe with scarlet clouds is an act of activating resonance with primordial natural energies of the world (specifically the Wuxing phases), not an empty ritual or a status symbol or a silly superstition... no, it's a taoist doing, a ganying act. There's empty ritual out there, of course, but taoism (taoism the practice of taoist arts and sciences) does take exception to this approach. It's like that surfer metaphor we looked at earlier... you said the board is taoism, is the tool? I say, the body of the practitioner -- surfer, or taoist -- is the tool, the body is taoism... the board is taoist philosophy!

Well, that probably makes you a laoist. It's not a rating system, you know, where one is "higher" or "lower" than the other, "better" or "worse," and a "taoist" ain't no rank (though it used to come with a symbolic exterior to distinguish a taoist from a non-taoist -- "blue robe with scarlet clouds" in the 11th century, e.g., worn only by taoists). Yet it is a traditional thingie, taoism is, and in anything traditional, rules have long been established as to what to call or not to call a practitioner or a non-practitioner of the tradition. In China, if you said you were a "taoist," they would ask you, "which sect have you been accepted into?" It wouldn't matter if you said "philosophical taoism" or "ancient taoism" -- they still wouldn't understand what you mean. If you said, "Celestial Teachers" or "Northern School of Complete Reality" or "Mao-shan magical," then they would get it. This would describe what you do or don't do adequately enough. But "ancient taoism" or "philosophical taoism" does not describe a process, you know... and Chinese is a process-oriented language, where if you say what you "are" without a set of "do" attached to it, you are simply impossible to understand. So... you "do" Laozi? Do you mind elaborating on what it is exactly that you do -- how do you go about living Tao Te Ching? It is a manual for the ruler, you know, a to-do and don't list for the king, the emperor, the general, the overlord, the leader, the father. Are you a boss? Do you practice what Laozi preaches with your subordinates? With your children? With your employees? If you do, I think it's wonderful. If you are not in a superior position in society and in life, however, you practice what those who are expect you to practice. There's no way around it. Tao Te Ching, The Way of Power, doesn't speak to ordinary people, they have no power to begin with... It admonishes the powerful. I wonder why so few people among Laozi's afficionados in the West ever notice it... Lemme do your Four Pillars reading, see if you ARE!

My two yuan: I live in an area of Southern California where some people surf. Others like to watch the surfers from a vantage point on the beach. The observers like to talk about the surfers, the waves, the beauty of it, the power of it, the meaning of it all. The surfers -- they just surf. One of them has a bumper sticker on his board that says, "surfing sucks, don't try it." To me, the surfers are "surfers," the observers of the surfers are "philosophical surfers," and the guy who surfs on the board that says "don't try it" is a surfing sage. I see a striking similarity to all those taoist/ism discussions in this situtation. To me, a taoist who practices taoist arts and sciences is a taoist. A taoist who practices "tao of the mouth" is a philosophical taoist. A taoist who says he or she is not a taoist while practicing taoist arts and sciences (not while ism-bashing) is a taoist sage. "-isms" and "-ists" are just descriptions of what people do, or don't do -- not of whether they are "at one with tao" or not. A "lepidopterist" is someone who studies, and perhaps catches, and perhaps classifies butterflies. It is a useful "-ism" to distinguish him from a "rapist," someone who rapes. Likewise, a "taoist" is not rendered meaningless just because it has an "ism" attached to it, it merely means "someone who practices taoist arts and sciences," he does that rather than "hunts," hunting would make him a "hunt-er," and an "-er" is no better nor worse than an "-ism" -- it just describes what someone does. If you do taoist arts and sciences, you are a taoist. If you talk, read, write, think about taoism, you are a philosophical taoist. If you study cognitive neuroscience, you are a cognitive neuroscient-ist, and if you do brain surgeries, you are a brain surge-on, and if you dance ballet, you are a ballet danc-er, and if you watch it being danced by others, you are a ballet philosopher. It's soooo simple!

I put raisins in my congee!

I actually gave it some thought a while back. Here's what I came up with in response to a similar question posted at another forum -- When is a taoist a taoist? From a to z, take your pick: a) When I say so b ) When my teacher says so c) When my online buddy says so d) When my online adversary says or implies it's not when I say so e) When ten thousand hollows begin to roar, i.e. when Zhuangzi says so f) When she looks good enough to be her own granddaughter g) When she is Chinese but neither Communist, Buddhist, Confucian, or Christian h) When she isn't Chinese but eats even pizza with chopsticks, uses dit da jow on a taiji push-hands bruise, wears silk jeans, pearl powder, jade earrings, and can occasionally be seen in Chinatown's herb shops giving recipes of how to combine those herbs to nourish kidney yin to anyone who understands English i) When she hasn't fit in anywhere else she tried j) When she can move distant heavy objects with a snap of her fingers k) When the red dust settles and the water becomes clear l) When taoist is in vogue, a cool thing to be m) When taoist is a safe thing to be, i.e. when no one is waging a war on any taoist terrorists n) When it's her inherited or adopted-into formal lineage o) When it's in her blood p) When Sun Bu-er starts calling her "sister" q) When Eva Wong says so r) When Thomas Cleary says so s) When Winnie the Pooh says so t) When Jesus touches her forehead and says, Rise and Walk the Way and Know Its Power! Be a taoist, blessed child! u) When Deng Ming-Dao says so v) When Joseph Needham says so w) When her name is wind and she blows differently on ten thousand things so each can be itself x) When Fu Xi has finished calculating all the "whens" to come y) When the Jade Emperor says so z) When the Three Realms agree on her taoist destiny

Hi taobums, I am a student of assorted taoist arts and sciences. Look forward to some cross-polination.

Yes, teachers and sources. I am a traditionalist and try to steer clear of "creativity" in my taoist endeavours. Creativity comes easy, but I'm after authenticity, and that involves some leg work. The difference between female internal alchemy and male internal alchemy is that techniques are completely different, because the crucial jing-related organs are different and therefore qi pathways are somewhat different and therefore shen is somewhat different too. There's no male routines involving, e.g., ovarian breathing, directing qi to the brain via cultivating it in the breasts, single-point meditations focused inside the uterus, or coordinating monthly cycles with the phases of the moon. By the same token, there's lots of specifically male alchemical practices of no use to a taoist woman. Then there's quite a few bad ideas out there -- practices that seem to aim at turning a woman into a man -- and also nonspecific ideas that seem to apply to "everyone" but really don't -- so it's rather important to get the precise gender (and goals) of a particular practice straight before undertaking it. Internal alchemy is a hormonally active endeavour -- e.g., the Deer, a uniquely female practice, has been shown to modify neuroendocrine functions of the hypothalamus and the pituitary, the organs orchestrating the whole cascade of hormonal events in the body -- so it can get tricky (a little like doing brain surgery on yourself) and you don't want to mess it up if you can help it. As for external alchemy, that's different from both female and male internal ones -- it's exactly what it sounds like, alchemy you do outside your own body, typically in a cauldron, or a still, or just a double boiler...

Thanks, bums! By the way, it will be joinable in a day or two if anyone is interested (our techno whiz is working out a minor bug today). As for the Seven Decreases, they are: intercourse with a reluctant or unwilling partner; rough movement just for one's own pleasure; intercourse after exhaustion or hard labor; indiscriminate sexual indulgence; intercourse after heavy sweating; premature ejaculation; irregular breathing during intercourse; intercourse while the penis is not fully erect. "Before intercourse, the couple should regulate their breathing, stretch their tendons to obtain comfort and peace. They can eat a little if necessary to gather strength. The man and the woman should caress each other for sexual stimulation. When lovemaking begins, the movement should be gentle and slow. At this time, the couple should achieve body relaxation with their breathing and guide the qi to the lower part of the body. Penile movenent should not be too frequent for the sake of sperm preservation. After ejaculation, the couple should stop and rest peacefully and warmly. There should never be a second forced ejaculation. The mastery of these techniques is good for health." "Qi has eight increases and seven decreases. If a person cannot make use of eight increases and abstain from seven decreases, he will only have half of his Yin Qi left at the age of forty, and his life begins to decay..." As for the Eight Increases... very arcane, and I don't think it's even realistic for an uncultivated man to be able to get that going... veritable superman techniques! In any event no one would be able to do that before the Seven Decreases are completely eliminated. Whoever has completely eliminated them and wants to move on better schedule a long vacation...

The most powerful question is the most timely question. "Where's the remote control?" is THE question when a family sits down to watch a movie. "Is Jesus our savior?" would be the wrong question to ask at this time, and "who am I?" ditto, and "what's the meaning of life?" ditto. For every question, there's a perfect, imperfect, and dead wrong time to ask it. "Are you cold?" he should ask when he sees me shiver, not "are you enlightened?"

What's for dinner? Where's the remote control? Who won? Cream and sugar or black? Is it raining? Did you get my message? What time is it? Where are you going? Am I dreaming?

The Seven Decreases refer to sexual practices that are really bad for one's physical, mental and spiritual health. I can give you an overview if you're interested. (Tomorrow perhaps, it's pretty late here now.) The Eight Increases are rather arcane sexual techniques that can both correct the damage once it has been done and propel one's cultivation to a whole new level. These, you can't possibly benefit from unless you hook up with a like-minded taoist gal, so I won't go into too many details. In any event, one would have to start with eliminating the Seven Decreases before proceeding to the Eight Increases.

It's all right, my own knowledge is not that profound either, I just used to hang out for many years with a whole gang of physicists and mathematicians (and married one of them), and they like to talk crazy science whenever you get them sufficiently drunk. And then I picked up a few books along the road. However, Wikipedia blows. When I called a photon a "shadow of the antiphoton," 'twas a metaphor (and I thought of it as a neat one, if I say so myself), since we were talking shadows. No one knows what the counterpart of a photon from anitmatter, or from Dark Matter, would be like, except that it would be of a whole different order of "anti" than a mere antiparticle. However, it seems to have been established that Dark Matter IS reality, and light, in the light of this hypothesis, is its privative. I kid you not.

Issa this too: ISSA *** Thus spring begins: old stupidities repeated, new errs invented *** Just beyond the gate, a neat yellow hole someone pissed in the snow *** People working fields, from my deepest heart, I bow. Now a little nap. *** The winter fly I caught and finally freed the cat quickly ate *** Mother, I weep for you as I watch the sea each time I watch the sea

This dewdrop world Is a dewdrop world -- And yet -- and yet -- -- Issa

Yang Li, "Book of Changes and Traditional Chinese Medicine," Beijing Science and Technology Press, 1998, Beijing No.3 Printing House It is an awesome book in a horrible translation. This is the only source I'm aware of. I can handle it because I used to edit technical translations (other languages than Chinese, alas) and am used to guessing what the translator means when he or she is translating into, rather than from, a foreign language (the book was translated by two dozen Chinese translators who don't seem to have ever been exposed to live English or to the way taoist literature is usually translated by anyone whose first language is English). The book has won "The World Golden Prize of Taiji and Science (Medicine)" in 1993.

Actually, these are postulates of Obsolete Physics. Modern Physics asserts photons are shadows of antiphotons that derive their existence from antimatter and antienergy which account for most of the main events taking place in the universe as we speak. That's "events," not "objects." Ever seen a picture of Minkovsky's space of events? It typically starts with one photon, and all the subsequent events fall into a cone spreading out into infinity where each event could have interacted with this one photon -- and this cone of events lies amidst an immeasurably larger infinity of events that could not have been influenced by this photon. You know of course if you ever dabbled in the algebra of sets (a branch of calculus) that infinities are measurable and differ in size considerably. E.g., the infinity of irrational numbers is infinitely greater than the infinity of the rational ones. So, basically, the same is true for light and shadow: the infinity of events in the universe with any light in them is infinitely smaller than the infinity of events with no light in them, which still do take place -- go check out the nearest black hole if you don't believe me.

What exists is a relationship between light and shadow. Neither one exists by itself. Modern physics says so.

Get a couple of those ubiquitous Chinese musical balls and make a habit of playing with them whenever you're doing nothing else with your hands. Become proficient. Get a set with instructions for various exercises you can do in addition to the simple rotations. Flick your hand open-close open-close a hundred times as fast as you can. (You won't be able to do a hundred repetitions right away, it's the goal for later. Later, do a thousand!) Learn and practice the mudras (yoga for the hands). Make sure you are getting enough magnesium and B vitamins in your diet.

A shadow is actually "something." According to Don Juan of Castaneda's writings, it even has free will and can act independently of the person who's casting it. Then again, there's a Russian play called The Shadow where the shadow of a relatively nice guy becomes separated from him and, in this independent, shadowy capacity, grabs and abuses political power! Then there's Jungian shadows... and the Japanese thing-no-thing... and the annoying vitreous floaters (which can range from insignificant to overwhelming) whose shadows have far greater impact on the affected person's life than the actual "real" object behind them... and, last but not least, I can cause my shadow to wiggle its toes without wiggling my own!

Thanks for your thoughts, Freeform. So, whether "why" can be useful, and how so? The "why" I was talking about, the "feeling why," the "systemic why," is a bit like classical taoist definitions of all things systemic, nonlinear, "all things process" -- which can be described in terms of what they "do" but can't be defined in terms of what they "are" -- except in a roundabout way, e.g. by stating what they are "not." Just like Laozi's "non-definitions" of tao: "The tao that can be told is NOT the eternal tao... The name that can be named is NOT the eternal name..." The "feeling systemic why" is NOT a linear question that can be asked head-on. Rather, it is the roundabout outcome of an insight you emerge with upon diving deep into your developmental history. It's a "that's why" containing precise answers, not to one question but to a whole scintillating field of meanings, events, patterns, lots and lots of things you do in you life, with your life -- you emerge with a matching field of understanding "why" you do the things you do the way you do them, and it's unimpeacheable, this kind of "that's why" -- it's absolute knowledge, not relative information that can be obtained from others. You were talking about a white dot on your (generically speaking) face that only another can alert you to if you don't have a mirror? Another can see the white dot, but can't know its origin and the extent of its significance in your life. Now suppose you descend into your own lost, repressed, unconscious early memory and discover that you were smacked by your father when you were two years old and your mother applied some make-up to cover up the bruise. Suppose you have repressed the memory but have retained the unconscious pattern you learned this way: "whenever I hurt, I must cover it up." Suppose the white dot on your face NOW is something you applied yourself this morning, without knowing WHY you did -- you're just in the habit of applying some zinc ointment (e.g.) to your face from time to time. Get to the feeling memory of the original event and now you know why. Now you have your "that's why." You loathed going to work today, knowing your boss is in a bitchy mood from yesterday and will be picking on you, and that's why you have a white dot on your face. And that's why you dislike women who use make-up. And that's why you never show your feelings when you hurt. And that's why you feel angry around anyone who does -- they have the luxury you don't, they are free to show how they feel while you must wear the cover-up make-up. That's why you broke up with your wife. That's why you have tension in your shoulders which a chiropractor can't mend -- your muscles are still clenched, thrity or forty or sixty years later, from wanting with all your being to hit your father back and never being allowed to feel it, let alone do it. And so on... That's the inner "why" of the white dot on your face. How can another possibly know?...